COVID-19 vaccinations - The African Mirror

Sep

2021

Brazil official wants a halt to teen COVID-19 shots after death

LISANDRA PARAGUASSU BRAZIL’S federal government wants to halt COVID-19 vaccinations for most adolescents, citing a death under investigation and adverse events after some 3.5 million teens have already been immunized, but several state governments vowed to press on. At a news conference, Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga criticized states and cities for jumping the gun by vaccinating 12- to 17-year-olds without health issues that put them at risk of severe COVID-19, which he said was only supposed to start on Wednesday. Queiroga said healthy adolescents who have already taken one shot should not take a second - effectively seeking to halt…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Less than 3.5 % of Africans vaccinated against COVID

COVID-19

LESS than 3.5% of Africans are vaccinated against COVID-19, far short of its official target of 60%, John Nkengasong, director of Africa's Centers for Disease Control, said on Tuesday. World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the same briefing that the continent was being "left behind by the rest of the world" and that this would allow the coronavirus to keep circulating.

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

SA municipal election to be held on Nov 1

NEWS

SOUTH Africa has set a November 1 date for municipal elections, after a court last week rejected a request to delay them until early next year to allow more time for COVID-19 vaccinations. The new date, a delay of just four days, was the latest permitted by the court. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) had sought a delay of several months, saying it would be hard to organise a fair vote with the pandemic raging. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, told a virtual briefing that the new date had been chosen in coordination with the IEC…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa CDC cannot predict date for 2nd shots

COVID-19

MANY Africans who have received their first COVID-19 vaccine do not know when they will get a second shot because deliveries are delayed, the continent's top public health official has said. "We cannot predict when the second doses will come and that is not good for our vaccination programme," John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told reporters. Africa lags behind most other regions in COVID-19 vaccinations, with just less than 14 million doses having been administered on the continent of 1.3 billion, according to the Africa CDC. Ghana, for example, has…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

It’s a ‘travesty’ that some nations are unable to start COVID-19 vaccinations – WHO

COVID-19

IT is a travesty that some countries still have not had enough access to vaccines to begin inoculating health workers and the most vulnerable people against COVID-19, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. "Scaling up production and equitable distribution remains the major barrier to ending the acute stage of the COVID-19 pandemic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference. "It's a travesty that in some countries health workers and those at-risk groups remain completely unvaccinated." The president of Namibia, Hage Geingob, one of several world leaders invited to address the WHO news conference for…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Pricing out the poor’

COVID-19

NITA BHALLA KENYA will let private hospitals charge for COVID-19 vaccinations and will not set a price limit on their cost - a measure charities warned would "price out the poor" and create greater inequalities in access. The East African nation of more than 50 million people has so far received one million vaccine doses through the World Health Organization's COVAX facility, and plans to procure another 11 million for the public sector in the coming months. Patrick Amoth, acting director general at the Health Ministry, said on Thursday private hospitals would be permitted to import coronavirus vaccines, subject to…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Mozambique’s vaccination plans

COVID-19

MOZAMBIQUE expects to inoculate 16 million high-risk people against the coronavirus by 2022, according to a top government health official. Mozambique will begin COVID-19 vaccinations next tomorrow after receiving a donation of 200,000 doses from the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) last week. The government initially aims to inoculate about 60,000 health workers in the country of about 30 million. Mozambique’s Deputy National Director of Public Health, Benigna Matsinhe "We will do everything so that the entire eligible population is vaccinated by 2022," said Deputy National Director of Health, Benigna Matsinhe, who acknowledged it will take time given Mozambique's financial…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigeria begins registration for vaccinations

COVID-19

NIGERIA launched an online registration portal for COVID-19 vaccinations, its primary healthcare agency said yesterday, the day before the first doses are expected to arrive for its 200 million people. Osindeinde Ademilayo Abodede, a healthcare worker, was the first to register for the vaccine, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said in a Tweet on Monday. Her appointment was scheduled for March 12 in Abuja. "Our goal is to introduce COVID-19 vaccine in a phased and equitable manner...ultimately vaccinating all eligible Nigerians within the next two years, to ensure herd immunity," Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said in a…

Mar

2021

By RACHEL SAVAGE and ENRIQUE ANARTE

LGBT+ Pride marches plan comeback as COVID-19 vaccinations gather pace

LGBT+

SOME of Europe's biggest LGBT+ Pride marches are being planned for later this year as mass COVID-19 vaccination drives raise hopes of a post-pandemic return to the streets, organisers have said. In Britain, where the government said a ban on big events would be lifted in June if cases fall sufficiently, Pride organisers in Birmingham, Manchester and London announced plans this week to stage their marches in August and September. Elsewhere, World Pride in Copenhagen hopes half a million people will attend in mid-August. "Nothing can replace that feeling that you get of being among your own people, taking over…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Rwanda says begins COVID-19 vaccinations

COVID-19

RWANDA has commenced COVID-19 vaccinations with limited supplies of vaccines acquired through unnamed international partners and said the programme had started with frontline healthcare workers. The central African country has been battling a surge in infections of COVID-19 which forced the government to re-impose a lockdown last month in the capital Kigali. Authorities banned movement in and out of the city, except for essential services and for tourists. In a tweet, Rwanda's ministry of health said the country's National Vaccination Program had begun "vaccinating high-risk groups, notably frontline healthcare staff, with WHO-approved COVID-19 vaccines acquired through international partnerships in limited…